Moonlit Scars
by paired discontinuity
Summary: Luna was always good at finding, and caring. This time it's a bitten Lavender, before and after the full moon during the rebuilding of Hogwarts.
1. Before

_**A/N:**_ _More diversity and Harry Potter writing! Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge at the Basket of Books challenge forum, D9 - threeshot. And using a remi's OTP and an Aiko's favourite character, and somehow it all works. :D Enjoy!_

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 **Moonlit Scars  
Chapter 1 - Before**

The shaking came back towards the middle of the afternoon. Luna noticed it more than Lavender. It was inevitable. At the sixth toast slice falling off the plate, Luna gently took her hand. "Shall I feed you? I've heard the practice is ever so relaxing." She smiled, and reached for a slice of toast.

Lavender didn't mind the gesture, as rare as it was - or would become. She wondered if Luna even knew. Probably not, because Luna had been too busy dodging Bellatrix to see what occurred. She knew Harry knew. Harry who'd worn a gaze of sympathy and promised not to tell his friends - a promise she'd made him make because his friends included Ron and some part of her wanted to especially shield this new self from him.

Luna drifted closer, close enough that she reached out with the other hand to touch Lavender's ear. "I think I've felt a nargle or two," she said, brushing them away. "If it weren't for them, you would remember eating means you have to open your mouth first." Her fingers, slightly creamy with butter, touched Lavender's lips. "Come now, once you have it, the chewing isn't so bad."

Lavender obediently opened her mouth. Luna's touch lingered there: a warmth in her otherwise cold and brittle self. It felt like a band-aid almost, trying to patch up a wound too big for it and too big for gauze or a bandage too. Even too big for magic - and the war had taught them all too well how limited magic was.

Luna placed a small piece of toast between parted lips. Her fingers brushed the dry skin again and Lavender ate the warmth more fiercely than the food in her mouth. But then the touch was gone and there was only toast: slightly scratchy, slightly dry, but food nonetheless. She chewed. And there was sweetness in the bite. Honey. Funny how she ached for that touch again despite it.

Luna smiled and stood back. She scooted her chair over, an erratic magnet that found Lavender as compelling as the earth. With her other hand, she chewed on own toast, hers with a slightly tart marmalade. "Would you like some more? The more you eat, the less the fae are interested in you. They prefer prey who aren't already distracted, you see." She chewed and swallowed, thinking for a moment. "My owl is late." Luna regarded Lavender like she would know why. She pulled her wand from behind her ear and tapped the cups of orange juice. "I always like comparing father's paper to the prophet nowadays. They both ring such interesting bells."

Lavender reached for a cup of juice before she remembered the toast falling from her hands. Luna's free hand catches the wobbling cup and guided it to the other's lips. Every movement was gentle. Graceful. And to think they'd only laughed at her before. They both loved the same class, had the same mentor. They could have been friends if only she'd allowed such a thing before the war.

The juice trickled down her throat. It tasted bitter, unlike the honey and Lavender was sure it was only because the full moon's approach. It had tasted fine yesterday. She'd eaten by herself, in some lonely corner of Hogwarts because she hadn't wanted to be found.

That was before Luna found her.

And Luna was someone who seemed to enjoy finding things, be they people or her own shoes. She had barely set Lavender in a chair before running to pick up a strangely cracked pebble, calling it struck by lightning, or gathering the strewn garbage still gnarled in the Hogwarts grass from celebrating, and piling it up ready to sculpt. She didn't ask Lavender anything, just set out to do whatever she wanted, and avoided any harm.

There was no ulterior motive.

How long had it been since someone had been like that for her?

The war made her lose all sense of time, and the aftermath as well. Hogwarts still resembled Hogwarts, though the ghost mourned how little it reflected the castle of old. She'd heard it'd been almost totalled before the rebuilding. And through it all she'd been unconscious, healing. Surviving. And the other survivors, those that'd escaped with only scrapes and bruises and had nothing to do - or had loved Hogwarts too much - returned to rebuild it.

Perhaps they thought, when Lavender appeared in their midst, pale and scarred, that she too had come to rebuild this home away from home. Maybe Luna thought that too. Maybe tonight wouldn't tell. It probably would.

She slowly chewed with her thoughts. Luna's fingers brushed her lips more and Lavender savoured every touch moreso than the food. Though she knew she needed it, that warmth was what she wanted more.

So she couldn't be too disappointed when Luna's owl finally arrived and swiped the last of Lavender's toast.

Luna giggled. "Oh Ernest, I left you a stack over there. It has your favorite apple butter." She untied the paper and let her owl go, smiling over at Lavender like she had asked the most fascinating questions about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

"Would you like some of mine?"

Lavender swallowed and nodded. The warmth, the food, all of it would be necessary to make it through the night without a blanket.


	2. During

_**A/N:**_ _Looksie! We're on a roll!_

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 **Moonlit Scars  
Chapter 2: During**

Evenings were the best time for Luna to pick the droppings of the heliopaths. They were so bright in the dark, guided the torches and sang to the languid thestrals when they were born. It was how they learned to hide from the living.

Evening was also the best time for murder. Blood looked like dirt without enough light, and Luna was experienced with the way the light wasn't really light at all. She didn't say this to anyone, not even Harry, though she assumed he knew it already.

When the howling began, the sound was deafening to an ordinary ear. Luna knew the thestrals, so she heard the undertone.

Pain, sour and scared. New. The screamer wasn't used to crying like this.

She wondered where it was coming from.

She followed the sounds, her hands smeared with smells the wild could easily pick out. The thestrals roared, adding a new sound to the cacophony: the thestrals sensed her approaching and urged her away. She went anyway: calm and curious as though skipping along under a sheet of rain. She heard their wings - urgent flappings - and then they were there, before her, a living barricade.

And beyond them, she could hear snarling and tearing and crying: raw pain, and a wildness they could not grasp.

She didn't know: not with the thestrals protecting her so, but she could guess. She didn't need to look up to see the full moon, covered by clouds. The thestrals hadn't been afraid until she'd come. The voice beyond them had been afraid since she'd first heard its sounds.

Something peaceful with the creatures in the woods but a danger to humans and here, once, this full moon - it wasn't too hard to guess. And she could sense magic: magic wrapped around the forest centre, around that voice.

The question was _who_. The answer was obvious. She coaxed the thestrals away. Grudgingly, they parted for the scene in front.

Fear in each breath, timidity in what would have been a normal smile of teeth. Tens of canines bared with ease, trying to muffle whimpers.

It was a good thing that she was barefoot, which was the best way to find the heliopaths (the scorch in the earth was easier to feel with skin). Her toes didn't even squelch in the mud as she walked, moving towards the terrified creature. Angry too, for it was chained. The potion. It must have been. No wonder the dread was so clear. Luna smiled and caught her fingers in the gnarls of a tree trunk.

"Hullo, Lavender," she said, looking at the matted lump of fur. "Would you like a blanket. It is chilly out here, and you're missing a full coat."

Teeth - white and shining almost as bright as the Heliopath droppings - snapped at her. She pulled away, clicking her tongue and offering a hand: stained with the fruit of her hunt. The thestrals watched cautiously. They knew death more intimately than anyone and would know when it truly threatened.

And that wasn't now. The snout dipped, sniffing. She smelt ash, perhaps: burnt wood and soil and perhaps some moldiness as well as the few texts in existence claimed. Luna would make sure to ask her at another time. Lavender wouldn't mind helping, she thought. And it was a wonderful opportunity to further the research field.

And then the werewolf shivered and tossed his head a little. Teeth still shone through parted lips but her nose was filled with Heliopath now. The human smell had escaped.

"Oh perhaps you have been warmed?" Luna arched a thin eyebrow and took a step closer. The heliopaths were drawn away by the smell of burnt hair, but their droppings made excellent replacements for sauna use as well. "I have pocket warmers. Would you like one?" She stepped forward again, smiling airily. Each move made her sway like a ghost learning how to fly again. "Or maybe some blue-jar flames? Hermione showed me how to make them. It's really quite clever."

The yellow eyes followed her as she moved. It wasn't a straight line, but slow, arching and meandering. So the gentle wouldn't spook and flee. So the high-strung wouldn't pounce and regret. And it worked. She let her draw close. She let her draw one of the pocket warmers out: made of rice and still radiating warmth.

She offered it. Snout sniffed. Then there was an approving, rumbling noise and jaws snapped at them. A thestral reared and the werewolf snarled through the pocket warmer. The thestral relaxed. Luna still had her hand. She'd only felt a moist tongue flick her fingertips.

Luna giggled. The sound tinkled like the broken glass of the war. A low growl, no, not the castle, not that, something different, like wind chimes, yes gentle chimes and the smell of butter, butter on bread and rice, the scent of cooked rice was near her nose.

Terror, Lavender, sniffed the pocket warmer. Smelled like food, long dead but nosed it and it flipped, unmoving. Amber eyes widened. A toy? Was it a toy? Dead prey? Too old to be eaten, it would give her indigestion. It was a pelt! A pup's pelt! And no matter her size, she was still a pup.

A cub. Cubs could play.

Luna watched this with care, and looked towards the moon covered in clouds. It was a beautiful night now that no one was screaming. The thestrals drew closer, the youngsters snapping at the newfound toy and Luna laughed and threw the other pocket warmer as well. And when they vanished amidst the black bodies and she heard whines, she duplicated them so there was plenty for all of them to play. And two to go back into her pockets as well, because already her fingers were cold.

But if that was the price for a bloodless night, she didn't mind paying it in the least. Heliopaths preferred untouched soil. So did she. And she was sure Lavender would love it as well.


	3. After

_**A/N:**_ _And the final installment. And nothing like the morning after to wrap it up._

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 **Moonlit Scars  
Chapter 3: After**

It was the morning and time to wake, but Lavender, stretched out on the forest floor, only felt the lull of sleep. Her nose burned and her body ached, and she only knew the reason for the latter one. Every cell in her body had been rearranged after all, and twice so: once when the moon rose and then again when it fled in the approaching dawn.

But she couldn't sleep. Not yet. The towers of Hogwarts rose over the forest canopy and she had to make it back there first.

No, not first. Before that was retrospect and regret. Morning was a time for waking, in more ways than one.

A soft shifting of the ground made her body quiver. Someone else was here. Her brain struggled to put name to face in this haze of something between pain and despair. Another shift, and Lavender forced her body to roll towards it. At worst, she would look defenseless to an attacker.

At best, it wasn't an attacker. It was Luna.

Somehow, she seemed smaller than before, small and curled around a thestral, like the omen was nothing more than a teddy bear. Its legs kicked in its sleep, throwing up dirt. Luna made no clear sound at all. Her breaths were as slow and languid as the rest of her.

Lavender was reminded of a child sleeping in their parents' arms. Thestrals had been a frightening thing when first introduced, but now there wasn't a person at Hogwarts who couldn't see them and they looked so gentle, so caring. Even now, they crowded the other girl, as though protecting her.

It almost made her sad, but she was grateful as well. Because she'd been the dangerous one there, the one others needed protection from.

She looked around in a panic, creeping forward as carefully as she dared. Her limbs trembled and her heart danced to a nervous tune. She saw no marks. Smelt no blood - but she had a human nose again. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to smell the blood. Perhaps her spells had failed.

No, they'd definitely failed if Luna was there. Why _was_ Luna there? She breathed noisily, almost gulping air and forest smells.

She smelt something. Not blood, but ash. And she glimpsed clumps of rice scattered about the forest floor, and a young, awake, thestral playing with one such clump.

It saw her sitting up and came over, bringing the clump and dropping it in her lap.

She stared at it, befuddled. What… was this a pocket warmer? Why would one be out here? Why would so many be out here? She reached to touch it and held it in her hands. With her feeble eyes and little light it looked like a lump of coal.

"She wants you to throw it."

Luna stared at her, wide awake, or looking it. Hadn't sat up, hadn't really made a sound. "You did it before. It was such fun, Lav." Now, a yawn. "Good morning, would you like a bite of toast?"

Her brain spun and scrambled. She didn't understand. Luna should be terrified, she could have been _killed_! How long had she been out here, sleeping so close? Even with the protection of the thestrals, why wasn't she gone?

Luna crawled to her, still a child in some way, and settled herself at the edge of Lavender's touch. She smiled. "Or perhaps we could have waffles and toast. I do so love those after an evening in the woods. All nice and syrupy! The Humdingers tend to run and the nargles hate maple, so it's just perfect, like you."

All those words jumbled together and Lavender could really only understand half of them. But when she reached out, enchanted by the desire she didn't really grasp, and patted Luna's head, the easy lean to her hands said everything Luna's babbling probably meant.

There was no fear when with Luna, not really.

"I…" And it disturbed her how much like old Remus Lupin she sounded like now. "I think I would like some toast."

"I will squeeze you some juice," Luna decided. "Your throat is parched from games."

Her hands would continue to tremble and perhaps Luna would have to help her eat and drink and keep warm for a while more, but maybe, just maybe, Luna would stay even after that, through the other full moons.

Though that was an odd hope, Lavender found herself enjoying the lunacy of it all.


End file.
